


Residual

by Aemeth



Category: Motherland: Fort Salem (TV)
Genre: F/F, Missing Scene, Raelle is amazing, Scylla fell for Raelle and can't handle it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23559832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aemeth/pseuds/Aemeth
Summary: Scylla rushes to Raelle's bedside after she tried to save Porter's life, plagued by guilt. Anacostia realizes something about Scylla and Raelle she decidedly doesn't like.
Relationships: Raelle Collar/Scylla Ramshorn, Scylla Ramshorn&Anacostia Quartermaine
Comments: 20
Kudos: 361





	Residual

**Author's Note:**

> I for one don't believe for a second that Scylla or Tally and Abigail didn't even try to see Raelle in the infirmary before Anacostia. A scene I would have liked to see, tell me what you think :)

Scylla hid behind the giant amoured car in front of the infirmary, her fingernails digging into her hand. Her heart had stopped when she saw Raelle lying on the ground next to Porter's body, her hands bloodied, her kind eyes, clouded by pain, meeting hers for a brief second before they closed and she fell unconscious. She had watched helplessly as strangers rushed to help her and had still stood there when the medics arrived and the whole mob had moved towards the infirmary.

Her feet had carried her after them at some point and she felt like a ghost, finding refuge from the blinding sunlight in the shadows of the car.

She tried to calm her breathing, which had turned short and forced herself not to cry.

What the hell had Raelle been thinking? Why would she give her life for a boy she didn't know, a boy that had wrestled her into the ground out of sheer jealousy?

She had ducked deeper into the shadows when Raelle's unit came running towards the infirmary.

The red haired girl, Tally, looked as worried as she felt, while High Atlantic had a threatening look on her face.

She watched them dissapear into the building and she still couldn't move.

_She couldn't move._

But after a short while they emerged again, Abigail cursing and just then, as if she sensed her, Tally turned around and it was too late. She had seen her.

Compassion joined the worry in her big eyes and Scylla felt it like a slap to the face.

“Scylla, hey...” Tally approached her and laid a hand on her shoulder. As if they were old friends, as if she wasn't the reason Raelle lay in there, unconscious.

“They won't let us in, they're treating her... but they said she's going to be okay, Scylla. Alder's personal healer is in there with her! She's going to be alright.”

Tally squeezed her shoulder gently and Scylla felt like she might throw up.

“She was on her way to see me.”

The sentence escaped her lips before she could stop it and Tally looked at her with pity.

“That doesn't make it your fault! Don't do that, Raelle wouldn't want you to. You'll see, she'll wake up and she'll be so happy to see you, okay? She won't blame you.”

_She should._

With great effort Scylla nodded at the kind girl, her eyes fliting to Abigail. The Bellweather looked at her in an entirely different manner, as if she fully did blame her. But she pressed her lips together.

“Come on Tal, we have training. We'll just have to wait for when she'll be released.”

Tally nodded, then gave Scylla one more warm and watery smile, squeezed her shoulder again and then they were off.

Scylla released a breath. Then she turned around and ran into the infirmary. She made it past the calling reception lady and past two corridors, before she was stopped by two strong, dark hands.

“Whoa, whoa! And where do you think you're going?”

They recognized each other in the same second. It was the medic who had treated them after they took the Salva.

The woman's stern eyes turned softer now.

“I remember you.”

Scylla grasped for this opportunity like a drowning woman for a lifeline.

“Please,” she breathed “I need to see her.”

The medic frowned.

“They just finished treating her. She'll be fine, girl. But nobody's allowed to see her.”

“Please. She's my girlfriend.”

The woman's eyes widened with surprise, then with sympathy.

“Well. I guess you weren't just looking to get her into trouble after all.”

The words were like bile in her throat.

“No ma'am.”

The medic smiled at her. She briefly looked around before shoving Scylla forward good-naturally.

“Alright. Go see her but if somebody finds you, you have never talked to me, understand?”

Scylla noded fiercely and then took of to the sick hall.

She toppled into the large room, her eyes searching wildly.

There, in the bed farest away at the window, lay Raelle. Scylla ran to her and dropped to her knees, hitting the linoleum floor painfully. She grasped her limp hand in her own and pressed it to her chest.

“Raelle...”

Now she did feel tears in her eyes, roaming over the lifeless form of the cession girl. There were dark rings under her eyes and her small frame looked much too fragile and little in her oversized grey t-shirt. Still pressing her hand to her chest she freed one of her own to caress her face, gently moving her sweat-matted hair from her eyes.

She breathed out shakily.

“You should be in training.”

Scylla whipped her head up to see Raelle's drill sergeant at the entrance of the hall, her hands folded behind her back and her eyes like black steel drilling into her.

She pressed her lips together but remained on the ground defiantly, only clutching Raelle's hand closer.

Anacostia shook her head and slowly started to approach her.

“Your sergeant told me about you. Best in your year and yet you continuously disobey orders, miss training... and you seem to have more interest in growing _plants_ than in learning the skills of the necromancers.”

She came to a halt on the other side of Raelle's bed, looming over them.

“They let you get away with it because they haven't seen talent like yours in a decade, or so I'm told. But if I was your commanding officer... believe me, I wouldn't.”

Scylla forced herself to give her a wide, humorless smile.

“Well, how good for for both us you aren't then. Ma'am.”

Anacostia's face hardened even more.

“I know your kind, Ramshorn. And I know your history. You think rules don't apply to you, that they're beneath you. I know you think that Raelle is like you. But you're wrong.”  
The smile died on Scylla's lips.

“You don't know me” she said, quietly and defiant. “You don't know her either.”

Anacostia arched an eyebrow.

“And you do?”

“I would think so, seeing as she is my girlfriend.” It felt good to throw that into the arrogant sergeant's face, no matter how childish the impulse was.

The older officer smiled at her derisively.

“I thought as much. It must be painful for you to know this happened to her on her way to your dorm, no doubt on the way to see you.”

Scylla could feel the color drain from her face, both in fear and in anger.

“You're going to blame me for this?”she rasped.

Anacostia pressed her lips together, like she was thinking it over.

“No,” she said finally. “But I am blaming you for distracting her form her training. Tearing her on your path. I will not have you endanger one of my units. And I will not let you drag her down with you.”

“Raelle's not a child. She makes her own decisions. It's because she doesn't follow orders blindly that she learned to heal long before receiving any training and that she tried to save... to save that boy's life. If you think you can turn her into an unfeeling war machine, you're wrong.”

The two of them were locked in a heated, contemptuous gaze.

“Is that what you think of our training?” Anacostia finally asked, dangerously.

“I-”

They were interrupted by a painful moan from the bed and Scylla immediately slid closer to Raelle. The girl was turning in her sleep, a frown creasing her brow.

“Sshhh”, Scylla whispered without thinking, softly grasping her face. Her skin was heated and wet with sweat. “You're alright...” Raelle stopped her movement and released a deep breath, like she had heard her. Her head loled to the side, supported by Scylla's hand.

 _You're a good person_ , she thought suddenly. It was such a banal thought but she knew it was fundamentally true. Raelle had been willing to sacrifice herself for a stranger. And it moved and twisted Scylla's heart.

Anacostia watched the interaction with a tight jaw.

“Go back to your training, Private” she ordered loudly. “I will let your Sergeant know why you were late.”

Scylla closed her eyes. Everything in her screamed to let a windstrike loose on the soldier, the mindless Alder-Zombie, one of so many. She imagined her bloodied against the wall, shocked and helpless like her parents had been. Not even a moment to process her end.

But she opened them again and looked down into Raelle's exhausted face and swallowed forcefully.

“Thank you,” she said smoothly, with an elegant smile.“ I think I can manage myself.”

She brought Raelle's cold hand to her lips and pressed a gentle kiss on it; then she rose and for a moment she looked the drill sergeant straight in the eyes, charm in her smile and all the contempt of her heart in her eyes. Then she herself folded her hands behind her back and calmly walked out of the infirmary, her heart beating wildly.


End file.
